Poison Pen Poetry
Barriers,
Those walls I’ve spent years reinforcing,
Wider than the granite walls at Folsom State Prison,
The surrounding moat is shark infested,
And the ocean in front of me swallows ships in the undertow,
Don’t worry we’ll be safe in here,
Trapped inside our little world,
Barriers…
My fortress is my salvation,
The freedom it gives me is an inescapable addiction,
Until she glides across the ocean and infiltrates the front gates,
The guards step down, while my guard steps up,
Sabotage her mission at all costs,
Stay put in this fortress we’ve built,
We’ve worked way too hard to allow this to crumble at the hands of a….
She intrigues me, sweet-talks me until I become putty in her hands,
Free form, Play-dough, my wish is her comma…
No. We’ve worked too hard, come too far,
In fact, you’re looking tired, why don’t you allow me to steer the ship from now on?
You want me to take a permanent backseat in my own life?
Yes.
I will rest easy knowing you’re in control,
We maintain control because of barriers,
Limitations, limits on expectation, low ceilings, tight walls,
You’re starting to constrict my breathing,
Maybe we should build a bridge, or a tunnel? Some sort of passageway,
No… we only build barriers,
Our walls flirt with the heavens,
Our fences are lined with razor wire,
Now that I’m in charge there are no visitors,
No outsiders who will conspire,
To overthrow this prison… Correction, fortress,
Reality is based upon perception, acceptance of circumstance is progress,
And what about silence?
Better get used to the sound of your voice and mine,
Isolate, medicate, and bide your time,
You’ll be old and cold before you realize,
Life has passed you by, but by then you’ve already died.
Is that you, my Autumn?
Nothing prepared me for the fall,
I’m planted among the decayed petals that clutter the earth’s floor,
One gust of wind clears the area to highlight my host,
But he’s alone,
Born to die a spectacle never seen nor shown,
The damage was irreparable…
Flecks of crimson decorated the ground,
He knew it was time,
Everything that is born must die,
But he spent my last moment wondering where the energy goes,
And then awakened as me, inside this rose.
Hello, it’s me, the old soul, the reincarnated patient,
The one who escaped the torturous entrapment,
You’re talking to yourself again,
No, they beckon me,
Summon me to their home,
Those swift whispers, drift through the bedroom window,
A congregation, culled by different accents…
I hear all of the cries, from the children to the ancients,
Despite their hoarse voices from years of isolation…
At what point during isolation do you stop talking to yourself?
I’m not isolated, I have you, babe,
And I have them, my friends from back when,
Those who suffered at the hands of know-nothings and sadists,
Some were born into the life, others were tricked, or forced into compliance,
I was lucky to have escaped before they were able to do any lasting damage,
Maybe that’s where you belong, You need psycho therapy,
Well, I appreciate the honesty,
But I’d rather not experience the trans-orbital lobotomy,
Their therapy, where they use an icepick and a hammer to sever the connection to the frontal lobe of the brain,
It’s the cure for every symptom from the insane to a migraine,
Speaking of migraines, I feel one coming on,
Want to know what is worse than isolation?
Overcrowded conditions,
Five to a cell,
Where you’re forced to sleep on the floor with a blanket and not much else,
Food is scarce, some patients waste away from malnutrition,
A visit to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum is a sentence to endless trepidation,
Take a deep breath,
Why? So, I can inhale more toxic mold?
The walls are alive, and there’s no temperature control,
We freeze, we sweat, with no windows to provide fresh air,
And the walls are two feet thick, so no one can hear our cries for help,
Which brings us back to the question, at what point during isolation do you stop talking to yourself?
When you’re left in a catatonic state, thanks to a botched lobotomy,
Or, when the voltage is set too high for your electroshock therapy,
When you’re too malnourished to open your mouth or flick your tongue,
When you struggle to breathe because of your damaged lungs,
Or when the girlfriend you manifest in your mind, relays to you that she’s a ghost?
A fictional fixture created to pacify your mind, and give you hope,
I’m here alone,
Oh, no you’re never alone,
You always have the characters you create, and the spirits of those long gone,
But I feel the need to leave you with one parting truth,
You volunteered to be locked away in here, this was completely up to you,
You took a sound mind and explored your curiosities, opened your mind to possibilities,
And drove yourself to lunacy,
It was your decision to spend the night in Allegheny,
Now you’ve been here for months and you’ve long since lost your sanity,
Your diet of rats and roaches isn’t enough to stave off scurvy,
You’re deficient in more than vitamins, but I fear there is no cure here,
Soon you will join your friends, the spirits trapped inside this asylum,
I hope you can find peace in their realm, which eluded you in this lifetime.
Who’s knocking at my door?
Could it be,
The police have finally come to take me?
No. It’s an extraterrestrial army, disguised as the men in black.
They have come to take me away,
I beg them to let me stay,
By choice or by force,
I’m threatened onto the mothership,
I tell them I’ll go, but I can’t stay long, Mother’s sick,
Now lie here…
Strapped to this cold table,
I understand how it feels to be at the mercy of my savior,
Please watch over me,
Wait… what are you doing with that scalpel?
And why are you putting duct tape across my mouth now?
You’re going to feel a little pinch,
Dear Mr. Guinea pig,
I’m sorry our scientists experiment,
Of mice and men, what is the difference?
To us, there is no difference,
Bigger canvas,
Bigger canvas,
I’m to be an extravagant oil painting,
Hey, was the Mona Lisa created by Aliens?
Silence, we’re propagating,
And experimenting,
What is this on my back?
I really need to be getting home soon, fella’s,
Momma’s going to be worried sick,
Since you were so quick to comply,
We gifted you the wings of a pelican, so that you can fly,
Say goodbye to your pesky limitations,
Your dream is your reality, now that you can glide across the nations,
I say farewell to my friends, and jump out of the spaceship,
I glide like a comet towards the earth,
Until I become a splatter of matter upon the dirt,
We should say a few words,
You mean, I should say a few words,
Yes.
(AHEM)
Here lies, Mister homosapien, male, mammal, man, guy, patriarch,
Enough, I’ll do it.
He had the power to fly,
But he never opened his wings,
So sad,
Remember that we loved him,
But he has served his purpose,
Now he’s just another crater,
Upon the Earth’s surface,
One more useless martyr,
One more classless derelict,
Randy, I lost my freaking lighter,
Mind if I get a cigarette?
It’s quiet time again,
The cold steel is pressed against warm skin,
A close shave with a razor-thin edge,
A single minute error in angle paints the parking lot crimson red,
Fantasies of a chalk outline,
Clueless investigators,
No evidence at the crime scene,
That can point back to the perpetrator,
A satisfied smirk overwhelms him, followed by incessant laughter…
Now that this scene has come to a close, it’s on to the next chapter,
Who will be the next victim of his chosen circumstance?
It never begins the same, but always comes to a tragic end,
The beauty is in the tragedy,
The surprise, the struggle,
He longs to look into their terrified eyes to see,
As he strokes across the jugular,
He awakens,
Unlike many comatose patients, he remembers,
That suit, the most pristine he’s ever seen,
His skin, moisturized and flawless except for the scar across his cheek,
He closes his eyes and views,
That ever present smile,
Those eyes so beautiful and blue,
But so cold at the same time,
Detectives urge him to speak the truth,
But he writes on the legal pad, the words, “I don’t have a clue,”
It isn’t fear of the slasher that keeps this secret locked away
It’s fear of his own foul secrets coming to the surface, highlighting the immoral and depraved,
Rehabilitation cures what ails the body, but sickness continues to rule his mind,
He continues stalking the children, until he hears a familiar voice from behind,
Flashback to the terrors felt one year before,
But this time, the result won’t be so tragic, because the slasher will make sure.
They prance and preen to gain his attention,
And are left with a burning desire,
He gives them no acknowledgment, nor mention,
Which further fuels their fire,
The fairest of them is left without her voice,
Cursed to repeat the last words spoken by another, and nothing more,
One lonely day, when he calls out for a companion,
She presents herself to him, the most beautiful of women,
The cruel one turns his back…
“I will die before I give you power over me,”
In attempts to lure him back, Echo,
“I give you power over me,”
The scorner of love continues on his way,
Rejecting every advance from the nymphs who love his face,
Wounded pride leads to a prayer, one answered by a Nemesis,
Physical beauty saw its own reflection in the pool, and his name was Narcissus,
It was love at first sight,
He longed for companionship with himself,
Now he understood the nymph’s sufferous plight,
And he leaned in to admire himself,
A wave of peace washes over,
Death is the only way, because he could never love another,
He says a final, “Farewell, my love,” into the rippled mirror and takes the plunge,
And hears an Echo, “Farewell, my love,” As the water fills his lungs.
Hello sunshine,
I think I’ll stay in the shadows,
Where the mold and fungus grows,
Isolated in this prison of mine,
This prison of mind,
Or, is there a darker place?
A basement, maybe a cave,
In which I can hide away?
The answer is not so simple,
A sound mind requires a mixture,
May I find the darkness in the light, and the light in the darkness…
Sordid times motivate a change of course,
The resilient find a new sense of purpose,
Shed yesterday’s skin,
Enter a new beginning,
Until the next inevitable ending,
The process repeats,
Eroding our bones and brains until the cycle is complete,
But between these times, reach out, change lives,
Share wisdom, celebrate, live, love, and cry.
Hello beautiful sky.
Hello, sunshine.
A pretty picture,
This moment in time,
Seconds before the storm, when white clouds turn to grey,
We’ve wished for this, prayed for this, begged for this,
Please, rainfall, come and quell the fires in the west,
Replenish our rivers and tributaries,
Give us life,
And when the first drops of rain soak our smiling faces, let us rejoice,
Let us give thanks to mother nature, or Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Oden,
Let us be thankful, because water equals life.
Forty days, and forty nights later…
Mother nature has taken her revenge.
Only the highest mountain tops remain above sea level,
The rest is a water world,
A world where fishing and sailing are the primary skills of survival,
A world where canned fruit is rationed carefully, treated with more value than gold one was,
In this world we are no longer at the apex of the food-chain,
We are prey for the gators, sharks, and microscopic bacteria,
Without land, and the resources it provides us, we are a weakened version of the tech giants we once were,
It’s humans versus the world,
But instead of coming together in solidarity, we fight each other, we pillage and murder until there is no one left,
Extinction.
Completion.
The final lesson.
She encapsulates me with her raven hair and the palest porcelain skin,
Fragile as a vampire in the sunlight,
Through her jitters and nervous tics she casts her spell,
I can sense a longing in her loins, her soul aches, and her mouth sends out a silent cry for help,
Hypnosis take me away,
She saved her poison kiss for me…
The taste of sweet copper tingles my taste buds,
the scent of lilacs fill my nostrils,
I sweep her off of her dainty feet, and lay her onto a bed of white roses,
In her nakedness she blends, and becomes part of the background world,
A place where I have no access,
I remain in this sliver of existence, longing for her touch,
But I am left with not a picture, nor a memory,
Conveniently amnesia takes its hold,
Hollow echoes fill my soul,
Songbirds at daybreak represent a new beginning,
Goodbye my porcelain goddess.
Goodbye my love.
Fresh eyes look upon the world for the first time.
Blink.
I must feed, I must sleep, I’m uncomfortable.
Blink.
My brain is a sponge which soaks up every tidbit of knowledge.
Blink.
Life is merely a game. I’m an immortal being.
Blink.
It would be great if I had control over my own life. I wish people weren’t always telling me what to do.
Blink…
My professors overload me with work. I don’t know how I’m supposed to be able to get all of this done and still maintain some semblance of a social life.
Blink.
My boss expects me to live, eat, breathe, and sh** work. As a result, my relationship is suffering.
Blink.
Life is work. I feel aches and pains every morning. I stress about health insurance premiums, and taxes amongst everything else.
Blink.
I’d love to retire one day, but I’m scared I won’t be able to survive.
Blink.
My bones are weak, my brain doesn’t function like it used to. I’m decaying by the minute. My life is doctor’s appointments and pill times.
Blink.
Life support.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Flatline.